Ordinarily, I eschew sharing Merriam-Webster.com’s Words-of-the-Day, partly because I assume everyone here who might be amused already subscribes on their own, and partly because they’re (the words, not the members of this list) often dull & boring. But today I felt the need to share not a WotD but some text from one of their little side diversions, to wit “Ten Obscure Words That Are Somehow Real.” (In the first place, how can a word be “somehow” real?)

The word of interest is “spanghew” which I love and which I plan to adopt as the first subject in a new campaign to gain currency for nifty but heretofore obscure words. It means to throw violently into the air, especially to launch a frog with a stick. (I’m not making this up.) But it’s not the word that fascinates in this case, it’s the fact that the writers of the feature felt the need to insert this text in the body of the writeup for spanghew – “ Definition – to throw violently into the air; especially, to throw (a frog) into the air from the end of a stick
This is a brief note, before getting into the particulars of this word, alerting all of our readers to the fact that while we may define words on the subject of frog-tossing, we are very much opposed to the practice of such. Please do not be mean to frogs.”

So… please do not be mean to frogs. Merriam-WEbster hath spoken.